Apr 8, 2026
4 min read
Today, we are proud to announce that Folio is the Official Technology Partner of the AAHOA Marketplace, for the members of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA). The new AAHOA Marketplace, coming later this year, will equip AAHOA’s over 20,000 members with a custom version of Folio’s powerful automation tools.
If you are unfamiliar with AAHOA, its history is inspiring and a distinctly American success story. In the 1940s, three Gujarati immigrants — Kanji Manchhu Desai, Nanalal Patel, and Dhiraj Bhakta (known as D. Lal) —began building thriving hotel businesses committed to quality and service. They established a shared culture of training and investing in their extended network, empowering others to do the same. Within two generations, their community had scaled into thousands of Asian American hoteliers. By 1989, AAHOA was born to unite what is effectively now a hospitality empire of independent owners.
Their impressive tradition continues with AAHOA today. Their members contribute almost 2% to the nation’s GDP and employ a proportional 2% of the US workforce. (That’s 4 million jobs - more than FedEx and Home Depot combined!). [1] They own 60% of the hotels in the US across sectors: 65% of economy hotels, 56% of midscale hotels, 62% of upper-midscale hotels, 50% of upscale properties, and 40% of luxury hotels. [2]
AAHOA connected with Folio early in our own entrepreneurship journey. In 2024, our company launched at the HITEC Conference. There, we met then-Chairman of AAHOA, Neal Patel, the current Chairman Kamalesh Patel (KP), and incoming Chairman Rahul Patel. Neal was a judge in the e20x Competition and helped award Folio the Judges' Choice Award. Since then, KP and Rahul have been supportive of Folio’s vision and hard at work to get AAHOA members access to best-in-class technology, across sectors.
As our team has grown closer with AAHOA’s member community, we have been blown away by how impressive the people are and how actively they continue to support one another. They, like we must, think and operate like entrepreneurs. Many of the AAHOA owners we have spoken to or serve already are aware that hospitality's current offerings could be more efficient, but often the cost of learning or switching tools seems too high. The next generation of owners seem particularly excited about more modern tooling powering their hotels and the power of automation to grow profitability.
The new AAHOA Marketplace will help solve this. Collaborating with AAHOA and Avendra International, a leading strategic procurement and supply chain company, Folio will help supercharge the existing AAHOA Marketplace. The end product will be more turnkey than Folio today, with AI-powered invoice processing and payments built in. And it continues to be free for AAHOA members to get started.
With the new AAHOA Marketplace, members can get excited about:
Easier buying: Folio’s enhanced usability makes it easier for members re-stock or shop across suppliers, all in one place
Mobile optimization: Folio’s technology makes the Marketplace easy to use on the go. Members can buy, track and manage orders, right from their phone
Rewards: Members can opt in to get cash back from qualified purchases and streamline billing with Folio Pay
Smarter accounting: Automatic reconciliation and spend categorization, supercharged by Folio AI
For Folio, this is a validating moment for what we've built and an important evolution in our product. Folio is best known for best serving large enterprises with a substantial F&B operations. Today, our highly customizable product equips the high-turnover workforce at large enterprises and luxury independent hotels to juggle, often, yes - thousands - of vendors. Folio will continue to focus on these large managers, helping them turn their cost centers into revenue centers.
However, many owner-operators in hospitality value speed, savings, and simplicity. Needs are different. They want easier ways to buy and earn. When you own and operate, every dollar and every minute dictates the way you spend your day. The more time you’re slogging in paper invoices, the less time you have to care for your customers and unlock new revenue streams.
At Folio, we are passionate about supporting all hospitality operators––from the multi-property enterprise to the smaller owner-operator. By building the new AAHOA Marketplace, we can develop a version of Folio that helps serve a wider range of the industry. We are honored to be chosen to power the operations of this community of entrepreneurs, and develope Folio's product to serve their needs.
Our partnership with AAHOA kicks off at the AAHOACON26 conference in Philadelphia today! Come say hi and get a sneak peek at Booth #2032!
Can’t make the conference? Sign up here to learn more, in advance of the new AAHOA Marketplace launch later this year.
Already on the AAHOA Marketplace, and curious to learn more? Sign up here, as well! We promise to keep you posted, too!
[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
[2] https://lodgingmagazine.com/aahoa-releases-study-on-members-influence-and-economic-impact/